Ghosts in the System
by Spylace
Summary: AU Starscream has a slightly different plan in mind to revive the AllSpark.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Ghosts in the System  
**Summary: **AU Starscream has a slightly different plan in mind to revive the AllSpark.  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Pairing:** none  
**Notes:** It's been floating around in my hard drive, of course I'm going to poke at it. Takes place during IDW's _Reign of Starscream_. This fic disregards the existence of ROTF except for the Dynasty of Primes thing. Maybe.  
**Disclaimer:** *sighs*  
**Warnings: **Hand-wavy science, characters out of character. Author recommends a good dose of rum and tequila if you have any.  
**Word count:** 2100+ for this chapter

.

This is how Soundwave's last conversation with Starscream went:

"Lord Megatron has fallen. The AllSpark is destroyed—the Autobots won."

Soundwave cradled the broken body of his symbiote in one servo, covering it with the other as though performing a burial, regretting having sent his creation out on a fool's errand.

Outwardly, he remains calm and impassive. He assists Starscream in compiling the massive amount of data fragging his processors, some speculative, others astounding, all of it valuable in a way Soundwave, the communications officer and an information broker, is unable to resist.

Starscream stands as though in stasis, refueling and dreaming of the long flight home. Days after the last flicker of life signature in their leader's spark, he had returned to the base on Mars with Frenzy's body, his carapace scored with burn scars and stress-fractures, blood in his cockpit, an intact leg ejected from his chest. He tore into the invading Autobots with the fury of a driller with its home breached, uncharacteristically quiet afterwards, his optics far away.

He asks of the sparklings in an afterthought and seems disheartened by Thundercracker's report. Maybe that is only Soundwave's imagination as he politely inquires after the state of affairs, their status in the thousand-vorn war now that Megatron is gone.

Predictably, Starscream scoffs and proclaims himself the new leader. But there is a quality to his voice that is lacking, conviction, anger, resolve. His processors flag and analyze the sentence as he picks apart the words. Starscream was Megatron's second-in-command, the natural successor to the Decepticon cause, followed by him, then Shockwave who had chosen to remain on Cybertron. Soundwave is speculative as he considers the seeker, still lost inside his digitigrade frame like a pneuma-lion lying in wait.

"Let the Autobots have the pathetic mudball if they wish." He says finally when the distant rumbles of Thundercracker's engines become too much to bear. "There are far greater things at stake."

The Seeker holds out an AllSpark fragment, cold and gleaming, an intact rune etched across the surface as a testament to their past. Soundwave straightens his backstrut just as the sharp talons close covetously around the shard, like the face of reproductive structures on plants called 'flowers' on Earth. Though it is hidden from view, Soundwave can still sense the curious hum of energy it throws off, impossible without chemical reactions or working mechanisms that he can perceive. But the entirety of the AllSpark had been an impossibility from the start, it is the reason they had sought it in the first place.

Hiding his thoughts behind a façade of cool professionalism, Soundwave asked "Query: your orders?"

"Keep an eye on them. Distract them if necessary." Starscream adds, "Save the hatchlings if you can."

.

They are greeted with less fanfare than expected. The mechs who stare at them are all familiar soldiers, workers and drones, no new raw recruits to be awed by tales of interstellar campaigns, only exhausted veterans who only desire honest energon and a place to rest. If Starscream is discouraged, he never shows it and instead flicks his wings open in greetings towards Ramjet and Dreadwing.

The Seekers acknowledge the display with a subtle flare of their own. Everything seems subdued here, even more than when he was navigating storms across Mars.

Skywarp sides up to them out of the blue, quietly nuzzling a fulcrum in his jaws before asking what is going on. They have returned too soon, the next report should have taken place three stellar cycles later when Cybertron's two moons had fallen in line to amplify their transmissions. Even then, there would have been no need for a personal visit though Skywarp always appreciated it, lonely and a little lost without his wing.

The black jet looks wearier than usual, his coat of paint faded to matte black and lavender, lacking the polymer finish he had the last time they met face to face.

"Megatron is dead." Starscream says without ceremony, eliciting gasps and moans from the gathered crowd. He sees a spy, too obvious to ignore, dumbstruck and grinning like a hyenabot at this unexpected news and takes him down in a true Seeker fashion, his wide frame easily pinning the shrieking Autobot to the ground.

Thundercracker twists the mech's head off, his engines spinning hard in warning towards anyone that might break cover to try and rescue the wretch. Bored, Starscream continues, "There will be a joor of silence to celebrate his memory, that is all."

.

Skywarp shakes his head.

"I don't understand. These numbers don't add up. There is no way you can power an AllSpark with just five Autobots."

"Run them again." Starscream suggests, sipping on a cube of degraded energon. "And tell me how many I'd need."

He skims the film of oil from the top and licks it off. It reminds him of the pseudo-organic he and Skyfire visited in their youth, how they had nearly starved before learning to distill energon from the primordial soup. Later, Starscream discovered that he could convert energy directly from the sun and other stars with suitable radiation output. But Skyfire couldn't, a mystery for another time.

Skywarp sputters.

"According to calculations, you would need an Autobot every _megacycle_ to get the AllSpark anywhere near productivity and that's assuming that it works."

"It will work." Starscream assures him, setting down his cube.

"How do you figure?"

"Because." The Seeker explains, not at all offended by his wingmate's skepticism. "It's my plan."

.

"Sir" Stockade asks, shortly before the unveiling of his AllSpark replica. "What do you want me to do with the rebels?"

"Hm?"

Everyone thought they knew what he had planned. Even the fools Dreadwing and Ramjet are eager to string up the Autobot prisoners as an offering to their artificial god, a pale mirror to the one they lost on Earth. Shockwave stares calculatingly, no doubt aware of the power he carries. Inside Starscream's servos, the Allspark fragment burns bright like a sliver of forgotten sunlight through the heavy smog.

Catching sight of their once great legacy, the five Autobots shiver collectively. It sends a quiver of contentment across his vents, how they cower before him in identical misery. It would be prudent to destroy them where they sit. They are like a nest of energy leech, chewing through the fuel lines on a mech's body. No doubt cavalry is on the way to save the pathetic excuse of saboteurs. He gives the femme a demeaning pat on the side of her helm. She snaps at his servo and he sneers a little, "They may stay."

Starscream raises an exalted talon towards the replica which began to rise, emitting soft peals of silver that resonated throughout their limbs. He all but purrs, "They will be the messengers to the beginnings of a glorious new era, all of it engineered by the enemies they assumed were warmongers and destroyers."

"You are insane." Elita-One gasps, struggling to break free of their binds as the Decepticons step away, leaving a perimeter of pearlescent shadow that the replica casts over the surface of their planet, long since left in the darkness, almost forgotten what it felt like to behold a source of light outside carnage and ghoulish hallucinations. It hangs over them like a giant, square moon, yet incomplete. They can all feel its power, how it tugs at them through ancient strings and codes.

"You're just like Megatron" She accuses, "you just want to control it!"

"Of course." He interrupts in his scratchy rasp, not even bothering to deny it. "Doesn't everyone?"

He looks at his followers, from officers to friends, mercenaries and drones and burns their faces, their shapes and sizes in his memory banks for later when he cannot remember, when he won't be able to. Starscream remains the only Decepticon within the boundaries of the Allspark replica, the five Autobots supplicant at his feet.

Only Skywarp manages to interject, half a designation before he kicks off into the air faster than the optics can follow, far swifter than Skywarp with his scientifically oriented processors can even react to his next move.

The replica grows infinitely brighter as he feeds it the fragment of the original, its light becoming purer and refined like the smooth armor of a newly born. Its warmth wraps around him like a tangible creature, across his canopy and neck, draping over his wings and servos. Each tap is like the blow of a war hammer or at least Dirge's poorly chosen excuse for music after sampling some of the Constructicon's swill. But they are mere love taps compared to what he had suffered, what they had suffered during their great divide. It is not meant to harm or injure.

Starscream cocks his head, considering.

"Sky?"

.

Skywarp can only watch in horror as Starscream's body tumbles out of the sky.

.

In the confusion, the five Autobots flee, carrying Signal Flare between them as Grindcore slips out of his restraints, shredding the rest on others as Decepticons milled in a flurry of panic beneath the giant tome that was the AllSpark. Instead of the familiar golden radiance of in her central data banks, the AllSpark glows silver like metal purged of impurities and contaminants, clean like the oval shell of a lilleth's egg.

They run through the night, stopping only to coalesce with an advanced scout her sister Arcee had sent in a prelude to their rescue, exchanging hushed stories of what they had seen, what Starscream had done. When the horizon falls silent as it did during times of grief and war, Elita-One stops despite the insistent tugs at her servo, digging her heels in to bear witness, as Starscream promised, to a new chapter in Cybertronian history.

Elita-One had heard many mourn their dead, had grieved and buried her share as well. But never had the death of an outsider touch her so deep, like the indomitable pull of the tide as precipitated by one of their two moons. And like a satellite stuck in orbit, she can't move as Crankcase shudders at the subsonic cries, as though it took everything within him to stand still and listen instead of joining in, grudging respects towards an enemy who had accomplished the impossible.

"He did it then. That sorry excuse for a robo-chicken really did it."

"Primus" Warpath exhales with the soft whine of his crushed vents. "Everyone on Cybertron... slag, the whole universe must be hearing it right now."

"It's just Starscream." Elita-One manages to choke out. Signal Flare stares at her in disbelief. "It's just Starscream, nothing's changed."

.

Within a mega-cycle, the entire planet flares back to life, energon pooling where previously there had been none, groves of twisted metal and piping pushed up against the surface overnight. Wildlife returns, at first the glitch mice and their nano-gnat like tendency to survive anything. Then the reports come in from the badlands where the neutrals and peacekeepers, despising war on all fronts, emerge from the cliffs and stolen caves like shell-shocked warriors fresh from battle. They had been chased out a band iron-bears when energon began to flow across the valley, replenishing the barren earth. One youngling even held a half-grown turbofox in her servos though she had no idea how anyone managed to catch one in the first place.

They keep their distance after the initial contact, throwing their lot in with the Decepticons once they disappeared into the bounds of the city.

Relays are created, networks established and Starscream's body prepared for a grand ceremony. Elita-One attends in disguise, her optics painted red to escape the scrutiny of an overzealous drone. She sees his wingmate Skywarp, painted grey like death, in mourning. A Thundercracker drone guards his side, attempting to comfort him as Starscream's body is carried away, ready to be launched into space as it is the Seeker custom.

What information they glean from his processors, they release to the public. Most of it is Decepticon propaganda, vindicated by the recreation of the AllSpark. Rest of it is scientific data on space exploration. Though Elita-One prefers to have her pedes firmly on the ground, even she can appreciate the images of stellar nurseries, prospective colonies for those trying to get away.

She reaches the end of her data packet regarding the battle carried out over a planet Sol-3. It is raw data, unedited, most of it images and the military power of the Earthlings, peppered with derisive comments on their primitiveness that makes even Crankcase laugh out loud. She sees Optimus through a Seeker's eyes, a sniper's eyes and makes an appreciative noise at the angle of approach. How unaware the Autobot leader had been of the deadly second opponent gunning for his head. They shut off the display disk and fall into silence.

"What do we do now?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Ghosts in the System  
**Summary: **AU Starscream succeeds in rebuilding the AllSpark; now what?  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Pairing:** none  
**Notes:** So it turns out that Crankcase _isn't_ an Autobot but a particularly whiny Decepticon who got on Starscream's bad side one too many times. Since it's a lot easier to describe them as the five Autobots, I'm just going to do that. Hey, it's not like ROTF or DOTM is going to happen here. One more part after this.  
**Disclaimer:** *sighs*  
**Warnings: **Hand-wavy science, characters out of character. Un-betaed  
**Word count:** 3000+ for this chapter

* * *

**Starfire201** – I am going to take that as a compliment because all the other times, I make people cry or at least I make them go 'fwee garters'. Yeah that's still probably my fault.

* * *

"Commander, this is your seventh cube."

"You know, I was like you once TC. Nice, polite, _instrumental_ in stopping a certain aft-headed son of a titanium moosebot from blowing all his credits on the pile of slag the Constructicons called energon back when he, you know? Got kicked out of the science division. I thought I was doing _good_. I thought I was saving mechs. I was wrong. He became an Air Commander." After a moment of introspection Skywarp adds, "fragger."

Thundercracker winces at the description before looking helplessly towards him, both of them as conspicuous as a rampaging noseron in the many dives that seems to have sprung up overnight in post-war Trypticon. Everyone is busy getting overcharged or trying to, the atmosphere of celebration following the AllSpark's revival becoming downright insufferable as the night wears on.

A mech trips and slumps against Shockwave's shoulders, a friendly servo traversing too low down the flat planes of his chassis. The Decepticon fourth, third, now second-in-command swiftly puts a fist through the mech's face-plate before narrowing his single optic, clearing out the five click radius of his entire person with the force of his glare.

Skywarp barely notices. Likely, he does not care. He taps a wavering claw against the counter for another while the bartender, a wire-thin femme in a horrid shade of peacock-blue, cowers against the rusty taps that probably fed directly into the city's energon lines. Swindle had been railing against it earlier, predicting that the city would fall into renewed chaos if they failed to establish some semblance of order. A consummate capitalist at heart, the mech was last seen pouring over figures with a handful of his drones. As loathed as he is to admit, Shockwave is inclined to agree.

He informs the femme her just how many health codes she has violated simply by standing there, serving energon to raw, hopeless scraps of slagheap who hadn't known just how raw and hopeless they were until that very moment. The suicidal few who stayed chooses that moment to desperately sneak out. Skywarp's optics flicker in surprise.

"Dude, I mean _dude_."

"Commander Skywarp" He says impatiently. "Your presence is necessary in order to recall our troops. Might I remind you that the Combaticons are still fighting insurgents in Sector -0.1830pc Gamma?"

Skywarp snorts into his empty cube, holding it between his mandibles like the subtle clench of a chess piece moved across the board. He sticks out a servo to reach behind the bar, his wings blinking directly into the bartender's optics before he gives up with a sigh, defeated by a simple valve. "You do know that Starscream gave me that rank as a joke right?"

"The fact remains; you are now the highest ranking officer in the Decepticon Air Force."

"Primus" The Seeker drags a servo down his face-plate though more from dread than genuine irritation. "Shockwave, give it a rest. I ain't going to be leading no 'cons in this march. You might as well leave Ramjet in charge."

"Hardly," Shockwave replies. "Starscream had a strict stipulation on who received command in case..."

"What? He decided to commit proxy-suicide by sacrificing his immortal spark to a bunch of gibberish written on a piece of rock?"

"_Commander_" Thundercracker protests, his wings flaring visibly in distress.

Shockwave ignores him. Starscream has—_had—_always encouraged letting mechs sweat it out a little. Said it built character.

Starscream had always had strange ideas.

"In his defense, it worked."

"Of course." Skywarp says blankly. "It worked."

Sighing, the mech humors the flyer, pulling up a stool to sit beside him. The femme on the other side of the counter seems torn between asking for a signed photograph and having a strategic meltdown. Wisely, she blurts out that she needs to use the femme's room and is not seen for the rest of their stay.

"What if I told you that he wasn't dead?"

"Then I've gotta tell ya," Skywarp hiccups, nuzzling the counter as though he can somehow leech the mineral off its grimy surface. Thundercracker pulls him back just in time, barking at the bartender for oil as he fights to keep his superior upright. "You're not as nearly as funny as they say you are."

Shockwave is impassive. He stands up, motioning for the two Seekers to follow.

"Very well, come. Sunstorm has something you might want to see."

.

Swindle and Thundercracker appear in the middle of the Autobot encampment, unarmed but with their shields at maximum strength. Inferno knows little of the duo that has breached their space. He knows their designations of course, everyone does. But his primary duties had always been to provide medical care and patch jobs to fellow Autobots, taking over Ratchet's place when the aging medic had followed their Prime to the stars.

In a way, that makes him the best judge of their character because what he sees toeing the half-stripped carcass of a sheepacon are not the drones he has known intimately without an optic-flicker but the genuine articles of Cybertronian Decepticon force.

"'Cons!" A youngling yells in alarm, throwing a rock at their pedes before being ferried away by his creator. The said 'cons look unimpressed with the lukewarm reception, the lights on the side of the flyer's wings turning yellow.

Inferno stumbles out of the medical tent along with several others, their blasters, torque rifles and proton cannons at the ready. He had spent a good part of his morning caring for patients who had overcharged themselves on energon. After eons of subsidizing on trace fumes, the sudden shock of graded energon had proven too much for their emaciated systems.

But the affected mechs were reluctant to purge themselves of good fuel, unable to process that the age of famine had finally ended and there was energon enough for them all. Armorhide, the edge of his optics lined a disturbing lime green struggles to his pedes, leaning heavily on Clocker who swayed with the effort of remaining online.

Elita-One, the highest surviving, ranking officer of their party pushes her way to the front, followed by Arcee and Warpath who looms threateningly despite the tentative truce. "You are not welcome here Decepticon."

"Cease and desist" Thundercracker commands, the tension vibrating off his broad frame. Like a cyber-falcon jessed, the Seeker is impatient, his pedes digging into the earth. "We are not here to fight."

"You are always here to fight." Elita-One corrects, narrowing her optics until only a slight glimmer of blue filtered through the fine, working parts. "What other reason could you possibly have for being here?"

"How about the way you 'bots are lazing around while the rest of us have been slaving away, trying to rebuild our planet?" Swindle suggests in his oily voice, raising an optic-ridge at the barrels of energon fermenting in the sun. No one had been certain how long Starscream's cube might last. Wheeljack's calculations had wildly veered from less than mega-cycle to a light year. Reliance on the Decepticons was a foreign concept and they had taken precautions. "You'd think you'd be a little more appreciative. After all that trouble we went through to save you."

"Save us?" Arcee says aggressively. "I think we all know what would have happened if we were the ones in possession of the AllSpark."

"Quite," Thundercracker snorts. "You'd have destroyed it."

They bristle.

Elita-One calms herself down with visible effort, her pink and white servos twitching with the desire to do harm. A sinking feeling ensnares him as he realizes just how vulnerable they must be if two Decepticons can waltz in unannounced without tripping any of the perimeter alarms. They are outgunned and outmaneuvered. He subspaces his electron gun, noting that similar thoughts seems to have occurred to the Autobots around him.

"What do you want?"

"We want Prime." Thundercracker says bluntly and protests well up, mechs swearing at his audacity. The flyer endures this with practiced stoicism, raising a clawtip to signal that he wasn't done. "Lord Megatron is dead. If we're going to rebuild our planet, we'll need him. He will be tried of course, and convicted for his war crimes. But we will be fair... enough."

"War crimes?" Wheeljack says, aghast. "Well then we should all be on the stand, shouldn't we?"

"We're not the ones who destroyed the AllSpark." Thundercracker repeats, turning his blazing optics on the eccentric inventor.

Elita-One clears her throat. "What do you need us for?"

"A proof of good will." Thundercracker replies with a twist of his mandibles. In the smoky half-light of a Cybertronian morning, the Seeker is indomitably blue. Not the shade of their optics, clear like the glass wings of a Cybertronian butterfly, but what the sky should have looked like and did many vorns ago. It is a soothing color, out of place within the typical imagery of the militant Decepticon faction. "You will tell him what happened here." The flyer emphasizes, turning his attention back to the matter at hand. "What Starscream did that he _couldn't_."

"I'll go" Elita-One volunteers automatically. "He will listen to me."

Thundercracker looks her over tense, like a pot of energon about to boil over. For a moment, Inferno genuinely fears for the femme. He knows that she is fully capable of taking care of herself. On good days, he gets his aft handed to him without her ever springing a leak. But Thundercracker is a Seeker and the mythos surrounding them, both fantastical and real, makes his jaws hurt like whenever Skyblast mentions rappelling down the Great Iacon Divide with his engines off.

"Choose another; we don't want to take any chances."

She chooses Arcee, as wary as the rest of them but also unable to deny that she hasn't eaten better in orns. Simply by sticking their glossa against the metal plates of Cybertron they feel revitalized and alive.

Thundercracker is right, they have been doing nothing.

"Pardon me Lieutenant, but what about the rest of us? What can we do to help?"

"There's always work in the quarry." Swindle drawls, rubbing at the chipped paint on his shoulder.

"Slavery!" Armorhide roars, teetering on his last legs.

"As if you'd know." The Decepticon dismisses. "It's hard work but you get free boarding and food. Better than what you've been eating up here."

"What would a 'Con know of high cuisine?" Crankcase snipes.

"Get it through your processors wise-aft, the closer you get to Starscream, the purer this stuff is."

"You mean the AllSpark." Inferno frowns, laying Armorhide on his side with Warpath's help.

"Ain't that the same thing?"

Thundercracker immediately turns to stomp on his comrade's pede but Swindle has already jumped away, anticipating such a move. "Never seen Primus." The mech retorts acerbically. "Probably never will. But I did know a certain smart-aft Seeker."

Inferno is taken aback by the mech's candor and the sheer blasphemy that blasted through his speakers.

Thundercracker nods to the two femmes, a long-suffering expression on his fearsome face. "Make your preparations. We will return for you in the next cycle."

.

Arcee hadn't known what to expect when an alpha class drone grabs her by the middle, her armor crawling at the sense of being displaced and reappearing on the surface of Mars. She immediately tears herself away, her servos raised and warming to a laser rifle that had already taken the lives of many swifter than the famed Seekers, least of all a drone who had already lost interest in her, falling in line behind Dreadwing who is clearly waiting for something.

Elita-One stares up in wonder like a zapmouse drawn to light, caught under a thrall of the blue-green orb its people called Earth.

"What is this?" She snarls, her back pressed against her sister's unable to decide where to aim or who to shoot first. "This isn't Earth."

"How very astute of you." Dreadwing replies with polite professionalism, subtle lights playing down his wings. At once, his drones crowd around him protectively, fawning over every surface of his frame. It makes her tanks churn as they eye her with suspicion and curious want as though they want to peel back her armor and figure out what makes her tick. The jet's voice breaks into her thoughts. "But a lowly drone cannot parlay with a Prime. We wait for Soundwave."

Though slightly mollified, Arcee kept her guard up.

Behind her, Elita-One sighs. "Look Arcee, have you seen anything like it?"

She had, multiple times when she was stationed here, in hiding with Smokescreen, Cliffjumper and Air Raid. They were all dead now of course, torn to shreds at the Seekers' claws. Only she had survived, only she had managed to make it back to Cybertron to see it flood with energon. Only she knew the truth about what happened here and the sheer cruelty the Decepticons were capable of. She has to warn her sister, fast.

But out of the darkness, a strange techno-vulture flies in, Laserbeak with his malicious optics bearing down on the two femmes. He drops into a mocking bow, knees bent and wings fanned out provocatively around his razor snake head.

"Elita-One, Arcee, well met. Soundwave is on his way."

Arcee is hardly assured. With his clan of Casseticons at beck and call, Soundwave might as well be a walking armory. He is easy to underestimate, a communications officer and the former third-in-command. How he had wrested the position from Shockwave, or if they had fought at all before one gracefully chose exile on Cybertron was the mystery of the ages. She had spent many orns hidden among the red valleys and channels, passing time in creating theories about the Decepticon command.

"Dreadwing, how delightful." The Decepticon acknowledges in quick succession. "Where's Starscream?"

"You haven't heard?" Dreadwing answers in an ironic voice, mixed with regrets and grudging respect. "He's with Primus now."

.

It doesn't take long to establish communications with the Earth-bound Autobots once Soundwave arrives. Predictably, the others are overjoyed to see familiar faces and news of Cybertron after being away for so long. But immediately, the comm links are rife with suspicion as Ironhide tosses out accusations like ion blasts while Laserbeak loses his cool and demands that he say it to his _face creator-fragger_.

Needless to say, it attracts unwanted attention from the dominant organics of the planet who watch with trepidation as their conversation is carried out in standard Iacon. Ironhide is forbidden from the screen and Laserbeak sulks from his shoulders when they arrange a suitable place to meet.

This is familiar. If there is such a thing called fate, destiny, surely this is what he was built for. He is meant to create bridges, dole out demands while simultaneously parrying away the other party's pathetic attempts to gain advantage. When he feels the tickle of the humans trying to listen in on his lines, he inwardly laughs.

Inside his chassis, Ravage purrs in time with his spark pulse. After so many years of being stationed on the Sol system, hijacking satellites and sabotaging others, even scrapping a few to feed themselves while Starscream brought him sporadic supplies of energon, it is strange to think that their vagrant life might be at its end.

It was an oddly intimate rapport they built, feeding and being fed. As a Seeker, Starscream was born to live in space, his body a construct independent of Cybertron from the moment he was sparked. Though he was only a fifth-generation Seeker, far too removed from the original line to possess a warp drive of his own, he had possessed ingenuity and speed that was uniquely his.

Starscream also brought him Frenzy's body. As treacherous as he was at times, impertinently poking holes in their plans, undermining their initiative with snide remarks that surely, no one was luckier than the Autobots to have such incompetent foes as they, he had been a worthy comrade, he would be remembered.

"Now:" Soundwave drones. "We will set terms and conditions."

.

The Autobots hadn't known what to expect when Soundwave hailed them out of the blue, on a frequency away from the optics and receivers of the curious Earthlings.

They run through the preliminary questions; were the femmes alright? Were they prisoners? Where were they? What happened?

A part of Optimus is genuinely glad to see Elita-One; they had parted on bad terms and even hastier words. But he is only filled with dread as to what her presence might mean in the Sol system. If she is not a prisoner, she is a willing party. He is afraid of what she might tell him and is humbled when she does.

In the background, the Earth-bound Autobots mutter their quiet disbelief, Bumblebee genuinely confused that a mech who would shred his legs as easily as one might tear wings off a cyberfly could do such a thing. Ratchet swears oath, some of them he hadn't even heard of during their long voyage to Earth.

When pressed with a look from Ironhide, the medic says wearily "later".

"He's a hero Optimus." Elita said quietly in reverence that was not unfound but still _hurt_ nonetheless. "He saved Cybertron." She stops; ducking her head as though she is merely curious what the green-stemmed structures might be carpeting the ground. The femme plucks a three-leaf clover, a spider dancing on the stem. "They extracted data from his body... how could you do that to us? How could you place the lives of these humans over your own kind?"

Optimus had no answer for her, nothing that could be heard through others' receivers. On the one hand, he is elated at the chance to go home, a home that has been reseeded by the AllSpark replica. On the other hand, the Autobots are now effectively criminals. There is really only one place for their strike force now that the Decepticons could choose their fate on whim.

.

They exited the space bridge to a strange sight of Autobots and Decepticons working together, new swaths of metal pushing up against the ground and free-flowing energon, deep blue like the retort of a plasma gun, seeped into the ground. Ratchet kneels, rubbing the dirt between his two digits, the sound of mineral-rich particles rubbing together audible even to his ears. Almost hesitantly, he brings it to his mandibles, his glossa flickering out to have a taste.

Ratchet stands up, brushing away Ironhide's sulky movements.

"He did it." The old medic shakes his head. "The stupid, over-clocked fragger saved Cybertron."


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Ghosts in the System  
**Summary: **AU Good and evil does not equal Autobots and Decepticons.  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Pairing:** none  
**Notes:** Last part—we will now resume our regular programming in which I pretend I don't have a mile of WIPs to finish. Also, it occurs to me that the Decepticons (*I*) totally forgot about poor Barricade. We'll just pretend that he died or something. If there are any factual inaccuracies about this story, um well, all I can say is that the movie universe has been retconned so many times (actually the problem is that the writers keep writing further back in the back story of the Bayverse) I am not actually sure what is what anymore.  
**Disclaimer:** why would I be doing this if I did?  
**Warnings: **Hand-wavy science, characters out of character. Un-betaed  
**Word count:** 2800+ for this chapter

.

"What are you doing?"

Sunstorm blinks at the femme in front of him, confused as to what she was doing so deep down in the catacombs. Others of her faction had already come and gone, visible dismay and disappointment in their frames at the AllSparks inscrutability. One of them, the black one, the soldier, had even accused him of poisoning the replica against them. That confrontation had ended swiftly with the offending mech on his back from a circuitry overload. His friends and the Prime hadn't been quite pleased.

In contrast, the pink racer stares at him evenly, though surprised that cycles of being underground had not driven him to insanity. He had suffered much worse during forced groundings leading up to the start of the Great War. At least here, in the AllSpark's liquid embrace, he cannot harm his factionmates for existing.

Slowly, he swings his head back towards his charge.

"I sing to him sometimes."

The femme makes a sound like she has bitten on something rusted. She swears an oath, "That thing is _not_ the AllSpark."

Sunstorm shrugs.

It is not within him to make such distinctions. That is something for others to decide for themselves. The only thing he knows for certain is that for the first time in a hundred vorns, he is at peace. He no longer feels the need to rush headlong into the void, to continue the chase so many of his kind died upon in the vain hopes of reaching the end of the universe.

Like a shaft of sunlight after acid rain, this AllSpark, this replica, no matter what its origins, is precious, more precious to him than a fistful of galactic credits or the radiation dampener he sorely needs. He guards it, not because Skywarp asked punch-drunk and grieving nor of Shockwave and his dispassionate tone, but because he knows now, they all know what it means to bereft of something that is so fundamental they hadn't thought it missing until it was gone.

During the war, so many of them fell, wings, rotors and wheels, so many lives needlessly extinguished beneath a faceless pede. If their second chance means anything at all, he will gladly give his life to defend it.

"The AllSpark lives within us all." He answers after a pause. "Was the High Lord-Protector Megatron not the Prime's brother and thus of his line as well?"

"That is different." The femme says defensively, crossing her servos and revealing the proud emblem of the Autobot faction stamped across her hip. "Megatron started this war out of greed and the Decepticons followed. If it weren't for you, the AllSpark would have never been lost in the first place."

"And so the Prime ended the war his brother started. What starts with death ends with another, thereby completing the circle into one whole."

"He was trying to save the humans."

What does Sunstorm know of these fabled 'humans'?

He only saw, through Starscream's optics, the endless stream of data only another flyer could appreciate, the wind speeds and the barometric pressure as he changed sectors, the contents of Sol-3's atmosphere and how moisture could turn deadly without the correct schematics to prevent them. He remembers humans as bundles of colorful flesh folded inside a suit of armor, their hunger, candor, ingenuity and greed match for any Cybertronian.

In the end, he knows nothing of them save for the fact that it had stung when the missiles hit. Starscream's wings had borne their marks, black and ugly, across some billions of light years to their home.

"Did the Prime not take an oath when he took office? Did we not all pledge to serve and protect our planet? The Decepticons were not the only ones who sent mechs into space, many of us never returned. While he talked of peace and unity elsewhere, we starved, we suffered, and we remembered."

Sunstorm turns his gaze, tracking subtle surges of energy only he can detect. He does not mind the underground as much now. If it were not for the craggy walls, it would almost remind him of space and the total isolation beneath his creator's canopy, dreaming and memorizing the coordinates for home.

"It would help." The femme clears her vocals, in lieu of an explanation she cannot possibly defend. "If we could see it, all of us, the Autobots and the Decepticons."

He shakes his head. "A spark can do only so much when placed outside the body. Eventually, it will have to be transported back to Simfur and reinstalled in its rightful place. Even now, the Constructicons are developing an apparatus to manage such transfer."

She seems startled at the thought, as though it had never honestly occurred to her that by extracting the AllSpark from its original chambers, they might have set into motion events far beyond the scope of their processors.

"Would you like to speak with him?" He asks suddenly, out of habit more than anything else.

Immediately, the femme's stance softens into one of acceptance and yearning. She reminds him of an orphaned zap-pony, waiting to be adopted by another herd member or even napping nosoron just to be part of something bigger than it is. Sunstorm understands this feeling very well.

.

"Primus."

"Close, I'm not quite there yet I imagine."

She steels herself, ignores the hologram rippling through the entire underground chamber as she sets her optics upon Starscream, proud as the day he died, as though she had not seen his body launched into space like a beacon calling their lost brethren home. She can see, behind him, through his glass canopy and the whirl of mechanical parts, the cube turning slowly on its side, the tiny runes absent in its founding crawling across its shiny surface like a complicated array of equations her processors cannot grasp.

_Replica == AllSpark?_

"Optimus says you won't speak to him."

Starscream hums in delight. "I cannot talk to every blundering fool that comes here, Sunstorm knows better. Even now, it takes energy to entertain you little femme, energy that could be redirected to picking off Praxus like _rust_."

"How is this possible?" She demands. Logically, she knows that she is still beneath the Trypticon tower where the replica is being held, Sunstorm just beyond the seemingly smooth wall that has been conjured up for her benefit. Elita-One cannot help but run a trembling digit across the photon clusters, disturbing the perfect line of a file case and a table, an empty vase which holds colorful bits of wire. "How are you real?"

"You might have noticed" The dead Seeker points out. "That I did retrieve a fragment of the original. It wasn't as though I was flying blind."

"You can't tell me you did all this for the good of Cybertron." She says in disbelief.

"And why not?" Starscream asks sharply. "Is altruism truly limited to your faction only? Our world was dying and Prime did not care. Megatron was dead, the original destroyed. This was the only thing I could do. I have merely joined the ranks of our ancestors in honoring the AllSpark, was that so terrible?"

"Then why not use someone else? Why you?"

She does not understand. Even compared against Shockwave and his mercenary tendencies, Soundwave and his technopathic abilities, Starscream had never been known for his compassion.

When the dull horror of Megatron's attacks had faded from their memory banks with his disappearance, the former Air Commander was what kept the Decepticon army together, struck fear into enemy sparks. He could have sacrificed his soldiers a million times over and she wouldn't have thought it out of character, in line with violent tendencies she had once denounced Optimus for.

"I knew what I was getting into." Starscream rasps, drawing her back into his illusions. "Knew I was the only one with the ball-bearings to go through with it. Seekers live a long time femme, too long if this blasted war is anything to go by. Half of my brothers who went after the AllSpark never returned. We depended on it to be our compass, a home for us to rest our tired wings." He finishes with an exaggerated sneer. "And Prime just launched it into space. He might as well have smothered us in our berths when we were sparked."

"Why not another Seeker?"

"Sentiments" A smile shifts his face into something softer, a kind of expression that predates the war altogether. "These foolish sentiments. I should have known better than to think that my spark could protect me from anything other than age."

There are meanings to his movements that she cannot discern. Had she been a flyer, had there not been a hundred-vorn difference between their respective factions, perhaps she would have known, learned to read the prophesy off the Creator's newest avatar like the simple script off a youngling's data-pad.

The loss of knowledge frustrates her in ways that she had never known. Starscream laughs as though sensing her thoughts. "I am done. I will be regarded as a hero in the annals of history."

"I should have known there was a catch." She says testily but without any heat behind her words.

"Still a Decepticon." He counters. "There is no point in selfless good. I'm sure you will do your best to slander my name in the history files."

The room trembles, his replica rotating with a subtle sigh. Starscream looks at it wistfully, his wings lowered probably for the first time since their war began.

Briefly, Elita-One wonders if he misses being alive and dismisses the notion for slighting the Seeker's memory.

"Starscream?"

This is the last time Elita-One will speak with Starscream.

"Thank you."

.

There is constant pressure inside his head that Thundercracker cannot escape. Like the tale of the foolish mech who tried to drink the Rust Sea, it feels as though there is too much fuel pouring through his lines, as though one more drop and he will be fit to burst. He eyes his commander, doodling wing schematics and thrusters while Soundwave drones on in the front, his words lost even before they reach his receivers.

"The Autobots are weak and demoralized. Each city has seen a marked increase in recruits to the Decepticon side." Shockwave rattles off. In his optic gleams a fervent desire to strike the decisive blow and declare Decepticons the winner of their hundred-vorn war. "Should we choose to act now, in the present..."

"Wait what?" Skywarp interrupts, setting his cube down with an audible slam. The glass shatters in his servo, coating his talons an iridescent blue. He gets up angrily, swaying even as Thundercracker swiftly moves to intercept him, bolstering one wing against his shoulder.

The grey Seeker points an indignant claw at the Decepticon second-in-command, tapping its wicked sharp point against Shockwave's chassis. "The war just ended slaghead! You can't be serious!"

Thundercracker tries to quiet him down. The problem is, Skywarp knows he is pushing it. Before, the Seekers enjoyed the benefits of being the kin-frame to Starscream, then second-in-command and the Air Commander. Now, Skywarp is on his own with only Thundercracker at his back, a soldier with no experience in politicking. He emits static in distress, offlining his optics as though it will make the problem go away.

"Surely even you see the benefits of an official ending Commander?"

"Not like this." Skywarp shoves him away; his mandibles open like a gaping maw. Several officers get to their pedes in alarm. Laserbeak glares at him in accusation, as though he had any chance of stopping a mech in mourning grey. "I quit" He declares. "And I'm taking the AllSpark with me."

Several protests start up.

"Illogical" Shockwave counters immediately. "The AllSpark would drain your systems faster than you can teleport out."

"I think I'll take my chances thanks. If there's any part of Starscream still in there, we're all slagged anyway when he hears your plan brainiac."

Shockwave whirls his one optic, considering. "You make a compelling argument."

"Live with the mech for a few vorns and see what happens." Skywarp shoots back.

"Query:" Soundwave speaks up at last. "Estimated time until cascade failure of flight function?"

At once, the room becomes ensconced in an oppressive silence no one dares to breach. Even Ramjet who, only a klik ago, had been eager to prove himself against Skywarp in the optics of remaining senior officers, subsides with ill-grace, wings twitching minutely at Soundwave's blunt question.

Skywarp fidgets. "You know we're not good on land. Aw slag, why do you think Divebomb keeps to the upper atmosphere?"

"I assumed it had to do with his fuel pistons." Hook remarks idly, a raised optic ridge asking if the Seeker would ever come down long enough for a full work-up.

"Half a deca-cycle" Skywarp spits out, "if you're being generous."

"We're not, trust me."

"Then this argument is less about your inherent opposition against another battle but hiding the inadequacy of your frame." Shockwave speculates, looking too interested.

They had forgotten, over the course of the war, that the senior officers of the Decepticon army were in fact scientists and not of the usual military stock. Though mostly a gregarious mech, born from a desperate need to fight off the so-called '_sky-hunger_' that was absent in Thundercracker and his drones, Skywarp did not appreciate the other mech's analysis.

"Thundercracker" he immediately stands to attention. "And Dreadwing" Skywarp enunciates carefully, his optics ablaze. "Were created with the effects of the AllSpark in mind. They'll show you just how _inadequate_ Seekers are."

"Wait a nano, you can't do that!" Ramjet sputters, indignant as a notice on his HUD announces his and Dreadwing's sudden promotion to lieutenant commander.

"You're telling me you'd rather stay?"

That shut up Ramjet quickly.

"Commander, why?"

Thundercracker feels hurt. He understands that he was a drone once, both he and Dreadwing were, experiments, and commanders of their respective units. Ones smart enough with an initiative to think outside the proverbial box. He understands wanting to leave Dreadwing behind. No amount of efficiency and firepower was worth all that complaining and hand-rolling.

"Cybertron needs you more than you need me." Skywarp answers succinctly, putting a servo on his shoulder.

His mandibles drop, but no words come forth.

"Commander_s_" Skywarp salutes. "May the winds be swift beneath your wings."

.

Dazed, Elita-One comes up to the surface where the neutrals are hard at work, spread out across the city cleaning up debris. They stare at her curiously like one might observe an oxide shark from afar. Neutrals are nomads and possess no faction marks of their own, but she sees some who have etched a shy face of the Deception front on the back of their servos or down their knees.

There is a sense of disquiet as she passes, as though she is traveling through a space bridge, displacing mass wherever she lands. A piece of metal crumples beneath her pede. After a nano-cycle of indecision, she slowly bends to pick it up.

.

They gathered in the ruins of Simfur where they agree to build a neutral territory, somewhere the leaders of a divided may talk and gather freely without fearing repercussion. Seven were to be designated the governing body, seven to represent the Dynasty of Primes. A delegation had already been chosen for the Autobots, Prowl, Ratchet and Mirage.

Naturally, all of them thought that a Prime was above factions; after all, he was the spiritual leader of Cybertron. He would be the tie-breaker, the mediator when the two sides were unable to come to a conclusion. They hadn't thought that the Decepticons would consider him an Autobot. They were wrong.

"For vorns, it has been the Prime's sole mission to take our faceplates as a trophy. We'd rather entrust our firstborns to a hydro-weasel."

Optimus winces. The amount of vitriol the Decepticons spewed forth never fails to amaze him. And it is with wary reluctance Ratchet steps down. Prowl had the higher rank and knew every Cybertron-bound Autobot by name. Mirage had influences within the remains of the Senate and had a knack for their slippery tongue.

"There were seven Primes, seven brothers, how are we going to decide who gets the fourth?" Ironhide asks, ready to start another war over their hypothetical fourth member. He tries not to groan in despair.

"You won't have to." A femme speaks up, ducking easily past his friend's lumbering frame. Unexpected joy blooms in his spark. Though everyone had assured him that she was alive, he had not been able to find her.

"Elita?"

"I will represent the neutrals." Elita-One says quietly, no indication of having heard him.

"You're an Autobot doll." Scrapper drawls.

She presses a servo against one hip and rakes down to the horror of her faction mates, scrubbing the solemn red face from its surface.

He feels betrayed.

Her voice is stead as she replies, "Not anymore."


End file.
